Top 5 Things You Loved about City of Heroes

So many, many good things in this game, it's hard to pick just 5. Here are mine:


5) NPC banter.
Brilliant. Funny. Surprising.
"We are very unhappy and that is why we are holding these protest signs!" - Anonymous protestor in Praetoria

4) Rewarding teaming.
Any class combo can have fun.

3) Great sound and music.
Amazingly good, really.

2) You are your character.
A decade later, and it's still the best character-design around.

1) You feel like a Hero.
In no other MMO, have I felt so capable through all levels. Even travel was exciting: I run and leap around the city for hours.

I still remember my first flight and will my whole life. Moments like that are the true fate of the game. Even when we can't play, it isn't gone.

I like that it's story based. No killing bears so someone could make a rug.

I like that it's quick, with many missions that can be played in 15 minutes or less. This makes it a good game for people who don't have much time to play and still want to feel they achieve something.

I like the travel powers. I like that I can get quickly from place to place without worrying too much about it. Unless I teleport.

I like that at the high levels I can really feel like I'm a superhero who's saving the world.

I like the great variety in character creation, of course, and the number of characters a player could create.

1) The people and community. I made some really good friends here.

2) The Character Creator. The one thing I could spend hours in.

3) The Devs. Sure, I didn't always agree, and had some snide comments about keeping The Best Costume pieces reserved for NPCs only, but you guys tried and Zwill even pronounced my name correctly on a Ustream.

4) The story arcs... they were just beginning to get good and solid.

5) Everyone here. I'm going to miss you guys.

:'(

The community
The players
The developers
The friends
and lastly, the game.

Hard to rank but...


#1: The power. In this game, you throw around enemies like they are ragdolls, taking on 3, 5, 7, 9, and more at at time. When you march through a map, you don't feel like a couple of weasely little guys barely going from one enemy to the next. You feel like you are king of the world, and you truly feel powerful. No other MMO I have played has that feeling. Other games you feel like ants taking down a giant scorpion. In this game, you are the scorpion snickting ants in half.

#2: The character designer. It was in-depth and intriguing, and the only thing stopping any character design was a player's imagination and ingenuity. From Micky Mouse to cows before the animal pack, if it was crazy and unique you could make it.

The best part about this character designer is that in this game, you were not "Nameless blaster #452". In a lot of other MMOs, your character looks like the armor they wear, and there is little to nothing to differentiate you from any other nameless drone in the game. But in City of Heroes, the character you made stood out, loud and proud.

#3: The community. This is one of the few game communities that I am actually comfortable posting up an image of myself over. Here, I can talk to people and learn things, get new perspective and have a laugh. Other MMOs the community is filled with groveling fanboys, thankless trolls, and no room for the grey between them.

#4: The writing. The missions and story arcs in City of Heroes were awesome. When I compare it to the questing in so many other games, those other games break down into the following:

"I have an inane problem that is psuedo-solved by killing some random NPCs or fetching some random item. There's no real story to this quest other than to give you busywork, and it'll quit mattering as soon as you outlevel this area. I'm uninteresting, have no history, and you'll probably forget me as soon as your next blink".

#5: The Developers. I was anxious in anticipation for all of the updates that were going to come out, because the developers listened and they cared. They would do things we all wanted, and they acknowledged our existence as an important part of the videogame process. Paragon didn't feel like a company at all. It felt like a family.

A list? Really...? You guys are dragging me into making a list when, so far, I have successfully resisted the urge out of respect for the seriousness of what's happening...

(sighs) Ah well... to thine own self be true...

5) Costume Creator - I didn't realize how much I absolutely loved this aspect of the game until I gave a certain other super hero MMO a whirl. CoH let me create practically ANY concept I could come up with.

4) The Forums/Forumites - For a reclusive shut-in like myself, the forums presented an opportunity for socialization I would not have otherwise had. I have spent a lot of my CoH time just reading your posts, arguing with your points (by yelling at the screen mostly) and laughing my head off at your jokes. You guys are a buncha loons and I love you.

3) The expansion without Expansions - This game has Issues. For the vast majority of its existence CoH gave us new content, powers, costumes and such all for the subscription fee. When it finally DID go over to pay-for-the-privilege system it STILL offered freebies at a steady pace. Another wonderful thing about the change was that the Development team used that extra income to really step up the rate at which we were getting shiny toys to drool over in the store-front window. They didn't just slow down and swim in Scrooge McDuck's treasure pile, they worked their collective glutes off to make us feel the money we spent was worth it.

2) The Developers - Paragon Studios. You will never find a wretched hive of scum and villainy... no wait... This team was awesome in all possible meanings of the word. I've already spilled a lot of digital ink in my praises of them and they deserved every bit of it.

1) Possibilities - From the nigh-infinite combinations of archetype/powersets/costume design to being able to create/play your own missions in the Architect, this game strove to not lock you into ANYTHING. Right out of the starting gate the watchword the Devs held firmly in front of you is "Choice." Hero or Villain? What Archetype? What Origin? Powers, costumes, missions, team or solo... it was all on the table... it was all available... and it was all fun...

1) Costume Creator: Over the years I've made characters ranging from a former marine to a robot sheriff, a street fighter to a luchadore wrestler, a golden age rocketgirl to a giant orc, a native american archer to a bombshell sorceress. All with the same set of costume options. And I was just starting to get good at it too... finally placing in some of Hero Dawn's weekly contests. Like my disco diva with the tigerstripe bellbottoms, and my martian commander who chose to take their goat creature as his prize. *sighs* Good times.

2) Soloability: I enjoy teaming, but RL causes me to afk a lot so I typically just end up going it alone. And while there are certain ATs that are better suited to that, none of them are impossible to solo. I mean one choice you'd think could never handle it, an Empathy Defender, is the one I had some of my most fun and success with! It just takes a bit of study to figure out how to approach the task, in some cases. Which is a big part of the fun.

3) The Feel of the Powers: The punches have good thumpy impacts, the slashes have good swishes and snikts, the zaps have good buzzes and booms. I can stand up to someone levels above me and feel confident that I can take this guy down. I can see a small platoon of enemies standing before me and know that they'll fall like the last one did. I would spend hours at a time super jumping, or flying, or ninja running, or coyote running, or panther running around the city, just cause I could. It was insanely fun just to zip around everywhere, looking after the city... my city.

4) Giant Monsters: 10 and 50 and 100 feet tall, some even bigger, imposing and awe-striking and glorious. Menacing robots, undead abominations, beastly mutations, the kind of fearsome creature that uses a car on a light pole for a weapon. We stood up to them all and said "No! It ends here." For years the biggest threat our world had ever known was a gigantic amoeba, and we liked it.

5) Stories: I have to admit, I probably only spent about a third of my time in combat, and I'd guess only about a quarter of that in any kind of missions. Most of my time was spent in the costume creator, the base, chatting with friends, hunting badges, taking silly screenshots, and running around the city enjoying the scenery. And most of my combat time was spent street sweeping... typically getting no further than Talos Island with it due to my rampant altitis.

But every story I ran was fun. Even the early starting ones that ended up getting replaced, they all had their good points. Peeking around corners to avoid getting ganked; panicking a little when two spawns were too close together; rabidly clicking inspirations and cheating death because of it. It was exciting. Most importantly they all felt like I was going out there and being a hero. Saving the hostage, stopping the bad guy, finding the artifact, defeating the ancient death god. That was me. And the first time I heard one of the citizens call out my name... wow. Just wow.

In no particular order:

Doms, Corrs, Deff, controllers and MM's. No other game has control/buff/pet classes quite like these. Most control powers are very limited. Most buff powers are limited in variety and most pet classes only get 1 pet. Here you get a completely differnt experience within the same AT based on your power sets.

Costumes. Most games character design is irrelevant. Here it is paramount and varied

Character Creation. Most games you are X, just like everyone else of the same class/race. Here you could be anything, with your class and powers just being a rough outline.

Modern/non-traditional fantasy setting. Not many games have pumkin men and mech cyborg soldiers and steam autonamatons at all, here we have them all in one game.

Badges. Other games have them, But I like how CoH does em best. Nothin quite like opening your character info and seeing a wall of badges.

MASTERMINDS. What drew me into the game in the first place, my own private army. Mercs in particular itched a scratch that I couldn't manage in previous MMO's. So perfect. *Sighs*

Uniqueness overall. Some really fun concepts in powersets here, and the ability to mix and match, as well as customize was extremely welcome.

The community. Most of the people here are just great all around. This I will miss just about most of all, since its so hard to find anymore.

KNOCKBACK. No, don't laugh. I am serious. Being able to knock my enemies for a loop has amused me for hours on end, especially if I can manage it from high places.

The studio. Paragon. These guys are a class act. After dealing with some real jerkholes over at Blizzard, it was such a welcome breath of fresh air.

The people.
The people.
The people.
The people.
And the game itself.

1. Fast movement.
Every other MMO I am looking at has you walk, don't know how I will keep my sanity.

2.PvP
Fast movement + quick attacks = awesome.

3.Global channels
LOve that I can have all of these across servers.

4.Loot isn't tied to encounters for most part.
Can get purples anywhere.

5.PL
Being able to PL anything I want anytime I want is awesome.

The character generation - beyond any expectation of online gaming. Customization like this is why I literally laugh out loud when people say "well this game has x features!" I don't want to use those features. I want to look unique and feel like an individual, not part of the same old grindfest with pointy ears.

The art - every little detail is there, when you look. From the window washer's scaffold rig on the building where Diabolique in the First Ward stands, to the tiniest badge shine. It occurred to me that I hadn't even looked over all my badges, since they had been changed a bit over time. I will be doing so, and getting as many screenshots as humanly possible. Within the art realm is also the SOUNDSCAPE - the addition of bowling pin action, muted discussions from behind the Bianco's restaurant facade, to the vomit noises of the various enemies who vomit... All just darn amazing.

The community - probably the most important thing ever, for any game. Arguably this community has saved my life - I know it's done so for others. We are to be lauded as the finest, most sensible, caring and worthwhile community for any MMO out there. So many people come and go, but when they come BACK, they usually say "man I missed you all, everything else is scary out there". We're heroes. That's what we do. We care.

Accessibility from the devs - this one is very important to me personally because I believe that a good game comes from the heart of its developers, not its wallet. Our devs have been the best ever anywhere. Up front, sometimes having to be smacked down by Marketing when things might have been spilled too soon, and honest with us when something just didn't work out. I've always admired that. Hell I always wanted to work WITH you guys, rather than just experience the game FROM you, but... that's not to be, sadly. I'm available, lol.

Everything Else Under The Sun and Moon. The game play, the powers, the INCREDIBLE city, Oranbega, HELL EVEN THE COUNCIL POOL ROOM. Now that I know it'll never be around to get lost in, and hunt down that last glowie in, I MISS IT. The variety of enemies, the fact that you FINALLY put female enemies into groups that had been all-male for so long. Really, just "everything".

The character creator
Flying- for a year or so I was in a wheel chair being able to fly in this game helped.
Super powers_ while I still thought fire swords were silly compared to fire blasts
Intresting NPC dialog
Odd little bueatiful places in game.

#5
The many hours spend in /help, toon parked on a cleared mission-map and just having fun with my fellow players.

#4
Praetoria 1-20. You want to feel like a villain? Don't play Redside, play the Crusader storyline...sooooo much wanton destruction

#3
New Dark Astoria, best mission writing I have seen so far. Too bad we'll never see how Scirocco's redemption story ends.

#2
Paragon Studios - Devs, QC, Community Folks... just plain simple the best team a game and gaming community could wish for.

#1

Quote:

We've gone and done the greatest crime, We've captured little Baby Time! We'll hold him 'till he's old and ill, To keep the world in winter's chill! So shiver, witches, in the cold, And pumpkin-heads will rot with mold! The human world will freeze and slow, And people will be filled with woe! For human time will be like Fey, Unchanging! Always time to play!, They'll know that this was Snaptooth's plan, We'll terrorize the world of man! We've gone and done the greatest crime, We've captured little Baby Time! You'll never save the little year For Red-Caps are the ones you'll fear! ... Snaptooth: "Did I not tell you to STOP RHYMING!"

I wish I could run this mission just one last time

#0 (what? It had to go somewhere)
The costume creator of course. Thanks You for all those amazing costume parts...especially the Red Cap Daggers

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kheprera Zwill even pronounced my name correctly on a Ustream.

...and failed utterly with mine. Made it sound like a girl's name

@Redcap

Costume Creator

Mid's

The 1-30 level game

Periodic release of new shinies (powersets, costumes, etc)

Tweaking out toons after the release of the Incarnate System

5) Dinging 50 for the first time, and the excitement that I would now get to play a Kheldian. And I created Hunter Omega Prime immediately.

4) The community. Simply the best.

3) Running Positron (the old one!) with my wife, sister in law, and one of our friends. So awesome, and so fun.

2) Playing the same character for almost six years, and still finding new things to do, or old things to do again, and being able to play with anyone else!

1) My wife creating a character just to tell me in game that she was pregnant with our daughter. So awesome.

Thanks for a great game, and great memories. This sucks.

5. The World: the expansive cityscape, familiar for eight years.

4. The Story: the contuining attention to detail and consistency, and quality story arcs, and even down to street banter from villains and citizens.

3. The Sidekick System! Sidekick/lackey/exemplar/malefactor was a brilliant way to get players together - for example, when my now-fiancee got into this game she would always sidekick to my higher level characters when we were on together (and yes, we had 'dates' in City of Heroes) so I could help her level and she could see all the things that were available in the world that she would not normally see yet. I love this out of all the mechanics systems the most.

2. The Character Creator: a masterpiece of customization that should be the yardstick that all other character creation systems should be measured by, IMO.

And, at Number One: The Community: Easily the most dedicated and helpful community in any MMO that I have EVER played, from costume contests, to character weddings, from RP events thrown by players, to radio stations and art commissions. And of course, including a very engaging and enthusiastic Dev Team to encourage things along.

In no particular order:

The customization, being able to create a character that feels uniquely yours.

The global friend/chat system, because it made it so easy to maintain connections with people

The Sidekick/Exemplar system, because it made teaming with friends so incredibly easy.

Ourobouros/flashbacks, because I loved being able to revisit some of my favorite content or go back and do things I missed

The community. Even if I never made a lot of friends in game or on the forums, I loved being a part of the City community. You all are irreplaceable, and I don't know what I'm going to do when the forums shut down.


And as a note to the devs:
If you guys find yourselves working for other MMOs in the future, please please please do whatever you can to get them to incorporate sidekicking, globals, and flashbacks into their games. I just find it so exacerbating that these great features of CoH are virtually ignored by damn near every other MMO out there.

In no particular order:

-Super Sidekicking. Please, any other MMO, steal this idea.

-Costume creator.

-Early game as good or better than "end game".

-It may only be Hellions and Skul(l)s at first but you still feel more super at level 5 than you do at 85 in other games.

-The community.

5. The game world(s). Only thing I'd have wanted to see was the bringing down of the war walls in Paragon and make it more like Praetoria. The zone revamps we were getting were nice too. I'm going to miss the immovable boxes, too.

4. The story. All of it. There's such a deep history to this game, and so much detail (one of my other favorites) in it. Even the CoH universe has only been around for 8+ years, it seemed like it'd been around far, far longer than that.

3) The details, mostly the little ones. Everything from the NPC conversations, to the seemingly more natural animations our characters had (compared to the other two). The top 3 things I'm going to miss here are cape physics, knockback, and ragdoll physics.

2) The "feel". For the 5 or so years I was here, I actually felt like a superhero. Not just an errand-boy with a cape and not a 4th stringer either. Sure we had the Freedom Phalanx to look up to, but as you leveled up and gained experience, you started taking on the same threats as them and working alongside them. And with the Incarnate content, you could surpass them. My main is an Incarnate, and it's weird but awesome that after 5 years here the NPC conversations always defer to my character's judgement "because of my stature". It feels....heroic.

1) The people. From the Devs, to the gamers, to the forumites. I'm probably not the most well known here (or anywhere), but I've been in a few game communities (or have been) and this is by far the best one out there. Even with some fights and disagreements, I think at the end of it all whether that's in 3 months or 3 years, we're all brothers and sisters thanks to this game. If the unbelievable happens and this game is saved, I think this crisis will only make us stronger and bring us closer.

5./ Travel powers. Easily superior to anything I've seen in any game. Every corner of every zone, with the possible exception of some rooftops in Steel Canyon, was available to explore.

4./ Mission Architect. That kept me logging in every day for six months alone. Like others, I grew disenchanted with the system, but it was a great addition to the game. I am glad that I got to be the one who translated so many forum memes (lesbian hellions, kill skuls, jerk hackers, purpling your warshade) into MA hooks.

3./ Steamroller play. Actual team play in this game remains more engaging than other games, because of its fast pace. That's the result of our dynamic scaling of game content, and the fact that this game gets the balance of power between player characters and enemies mostly right. There's no trinity here. No standing around waiting to recruit tanks or healers. You join your friends (of almost any level, thanks to sidekicking) and you go massacre stuff.

2./ Character customization. Again, the best that's ever been. A minigame in itself.

1./ You. Look at any other MMO forum. You folks are friendly and helpful compared. Pat yourselves on the back.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

1a, 1b & 1c: the players, the character creator and the characters the players created with it.

2: flying
3: at a time when other games required a team to do anything meaningful, letting individual characters feel genuinely 'super'.
4: Marketeering & the Crazy 88's.
5: running around zones with my son, letting him explore the world.